


Find the Mortal World Enough

by OldShrewsburyian



Series: Dangerous Ends [8]
Category: The Hour (TV)
Genre: Breakfast, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Ficlet, Friendship/Love, Injury Recovery, Introspection, Light Angst, Literary References & Allusions, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27028102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Bel and Freddie have tense and tender negotiations (as usual) post-canon, punctuated by Bel thinking about Auden, from whose "Lullaby" the title is taken.
Relationships: Freddie Lyon/Bel Rowley
Series: Dangerous Ends [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/779595
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Find the Mortal World Enough

_Lay your sleeping head, my love, / Human on my faithless arm_

Freddie has always been impossible. Bel tells herself this, as she smooths out the lines that have furrowed his brow, even in sleep. He murmurs slightly, but does not wake. Bel finds herself unreasonably angry at herself for her unreasonable conduct. She has a show to run; she does not have time for midnight vigils. And Freddie would not thank her, if he knew. He would protest, or, worse, he would sulk. Or worst of all (Bel allows herself to acknowledge this possibility) he would apologize. 

He has acquired a habit of apology, and she hates it. For his weakness and for his weariness; for the slight sounds of pain that he cannot always suppress; for the mere existence of the cane that leans in the hall, next to the phone table and the glass dish for keys and the place where, more often than not these days, she hangs coat and scarf and handbag; for all these things Freddie apologizes. Bel is not unaware of the irony in the fact that she, who spent years wishing to hear the words "I’m sorry" more often from his lips, finds herself thinking: _but not like this. Not like this_. And worrying she lies awake.

_But in my arms till break of day / Let the living creature lie_

She rises early, as is her wont. She watches the kettle so as to remove it from the hob before it screams; but his is the heavy slumber of exhaustion. He does not wake, even when she runs a bath. Sipping her tea in the steam-filled room, Bel reflects that the tub would be one of the chief amenities of the flat. If she moved in… she is startled to find herself contemplating the possibility. Would it be so simple, so natural? For her and Freddie to weave their lives together, guided by the same instinct that leads their hands to find each other in the dark? She finds the usually all-too-clear balances of risk and reward, fear and desire, strangely resistant to analysis.

When the water is cooling, Bel gets out. She dresses quickly, and emerges, toweling her hair, to find Freddie up. That he has made the bed and pulled the quilts neatly up must, Bel decides, be due to sheer stubbornness.

“Don’t drain the tub, Moneypenny.”

“I’ll give you the tenner for the hot water.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Bel wants to cry out that of course it matters, of course it does; that he needn’t prove self-sufficient thrift to her; that it breaks her heart to think of him shivering. She says nothing. She stands in his kitchen, and drinks her tea, and listens to church bells. Finally she shakes herself into action. First she stuffs a spare note into the coffee can that still holds Freddie’s housekeeping (hopeless boy), and then she gets out the eggs from their carton, the slightly stale loaf from the bread box.

“Breakfast!” she shouts, 10 minutes later.

“You didn’t have to…” he begins, coming into the kitchen.

“Don’t be silly,” says Bel vigorously. “It’s your food.”

Anxiously he meets her eyes, and his fleeting grimace trembles into a smile. “Bel,” he says, and then stops. She pours out the tea before she says:

“Listening.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

Bel tells herself that she will not, she will not cry. “I know I don’t,” she says.

_Certainty, fidelity / On the stroke of midnight pass / Like vibrations of a bell_

“I want to anyway,” says Bel.

Freddie looks at her, and she wonders how long she spent refusing to see that expression on his face. He reaches out one tentative hand; his fingers in hers are cold. “Bless you, Moneypenny,” says Freddie.


End file.
